Category Archives: Reissue

Connie Stevens: The Complete Warner Bros. Singles

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The charming singing career of a talented actress

There have been many actors whose musical aspirations out-distance their vocal abilities. Not so for Connie Stevens, whose singles and albums for Warner Brothers were sung with both charm and talent. Though best remembered for co-starring roles in 77 Sunset Strip and Hawaiian Eye, Stevens sang these early-to-mid ‘60s sides in a voice that conveyed both sweet innocence and Hollywood sophistication. Better yet, Warner Brothers often supplied her with very good material, top-notch arrangements by Don Ralke, Perry Botkin Jr., and Neal Hefti and the production talents of David Gates, Lou Adler, Jimmy Bowen and others. She only cracked the Billboard Top 40 twice, first with the novelty “Kookie, Kookie (Lend Me Your Comb),” and later with “Sixteen Reasons,” but landed several more in the Top 100.

Real Gone’s two-disc set collects seventeen complete mono singles (A’s and B’s), the stereo single version of “Kookie, Kookie” (the B-side of which was an Edd Byrnes solo), and the superb radio promo “Why Can’t He Care for Me.” The latter was featured in the Jerry Lewis film Rock-A-Bye Baby, but never released commercially. Stevens’ early singles were similar to those of her early ‘60s peers Connie Francis, Annette Funicello and Shelley Fabares. She sang lyrics of love, longing and broken hearts, often in tunes that have novelty arrangements; but as early as 1960’s “Little Sister” you can hear a growing sophistication in the arrangements and vocals, if not yet the lyrics. Though Stevens was never a belter, she does add a bit of sass to her delivery of Goffin & King’s “Why’d You Wanna Make Me Cry.”

Stevens continued to sing of moony teen-romance (including titles by noted songwriting pairs Goffin & King, Barri & Sloan and Cook & Greenway), but also branched into more mature emotions with the punchy horn arrangement of “Hey, Good Lookin’” and a torchy cover of “Nobody’s Lonesome for Me.” By 1966, she incorporated Nancy Sinatra-styled go-go sounds into the upbeat “How Bitter the Taste of Love,” and her last Warner single covered Tim Hardin’s “It’ll Never Happen Again” in a soulful style similar to contemporaneous versions by P.P. Arnold and Johnny Rivers. She continued to act in film and on stage, and developed a successful cosmetics line, but these singles forever capture the Spring of her celebrity. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]

Shelby Flint: The Complete Valiant Singles

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Superb folk-pop singles from an under-known ‘60s vocalist

Shelby Flint had but one Top-40 single, 1961’s “Angel on My Shoulder,” but the purity of her voice, the quality of her technique and the sophistication of her melodic sensibility has been enough to sustain a music career. Perhaps even more important is that, uncharacteristically for “girl singers” of the early 1960s, she wrote much of her own material. From these early singles, recorded for the Valiant label, you can hear her combining folk, pop and especially jazz in her phrasing and tone. Her jazz leanings turned overt in a 1966 cover of Vince Guaraldi’s “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” notching her second (and last) appearance on the Billboard chart, peaking at #61 pop, and just missing the Top 10 adult contemporary. Her voice attracted a young fan in Joni Mitchell, who may have also noticed Flint’s transition from folk to jazz.

These songs of happy-go-lucky days, romantic longing and heartache, feint towards other popular female vocalists of her era, but despite the orchestration, strings and chorus backing her, the thoughtful mood of Flint’s work is more apiece with the folk revival than the pop charts. Perhaps the best analog would be the sweet folk-pop of Mitch & Mickey’s “A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow,” but without the satire. This is all the more evident in a spare, sensitive reading of the traditional “The Riddle Song” (or as it’s better known, “I Gave My Love a Cherry”), in which Flint lingers over the notes, investing the lyrics with enough feeling that it might even win over Animal House’s John Blutarsky.

Flint sang with little or no vibrato, and remained impressively restrained even when she covered the Tom Jones showpiece “What’s New Pussycat.” She let her songs drift away in ellipses rather than belting out their climaxes as exclamation points. In addition to her eleven singles (A’s and B’s) for Valiant, this collection includes her original version of “I Will Love You,” recorded for Cadence (with the Jordanaires) in 1958, along with its B-side “Oh, I Miss Him So.” The other rarity here is Flint’s title song to Joy in the Morning (and its flip “Lonely Cinderella”), which was pulled shortly before release. All cuts are from the original mono master tapes, except 17, 18, 23 and 24 which were transferred cleanly from disc. Flint fans will also want to find Collectors’ Choice’s three-fer, but this singles collection is a superb retelling of her time on Valiant. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]

Various Artists: Cameo Parkway Holiday Hits

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Holiday odds and sods from the legendary Cameo Parkway vault

With the departure of Gordon Anderson from Collectors’ Choice, and the apparent sidelining of the label’s activities, their reissue program for the Cameo-Parkway catalog has moved with Anderson to his new label, Real Gone. This eighteen-track set of holiday-themed material combines tunes from two of the label’s stars, Bobby Rydell and Chubby Checker and two of the label’s fine doo-wop groups, the Cameos and Jaynells. The track-list features a number of fun one-offs, including Bob Seger’s rock ‘n’ soul “Sock it to Me Santa,” Toni Sante’s Spanish-language girl group “Donde Esta Santa Clause?,” and a funny Bob Dylan lampoon, Bobby the Poet singing “White Christmas,” as introduced by a Bobby Kennedy impressionist. There are also two versions of “Auld Lang Syne,” one in ragtime style by Beethoven Ben (in actuality, label co-founder Bernie Lowe), and one as bluegrass by The Lonesome Travelers, featuring the legendary Norman Blake on mandolin!

Less interesting are seven cuts split between the big band instrumentals of the Rudolph Statler Orchestra and the orchestral sounds of the International Pop Orchestra. Neither unit has anything to do with the Cameo Parkway house band sound (though, to be fair, neither do the Lonesome Travelers), and the arrangements are generic. This set was previously issued by ABKCO as Holiday Hits from Cameo Parkway, and it’s reissued here with the addition of the B-side “Jingle Bell Imitations,” in which Rydell and Checker run through the styles of Elvis Presley, Bobby Darin, Fats Domino, Frank Fontaine and the Chipmunks. It’s a shame Cameo Parkway never gathered Checker, Rydell, Dee Dee Sharp, the Orlons, Tymes and others to record a proper holiday album. Still, if you factor out the instrumentals, there are many fine rarities here to add to your holiday playlist. Nicely mastered mono on 1, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 18, and stereo elsewhere. The booklet includes terrific liner notes by Gene Sculatti and discographical details. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]

Buddy Cole: Swingin’ at the Hammond Organ

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Theatrical Hammond organ takes on standards

Edwin “Buddy” Cole’s Hammond albums are probably better known by sight than sound. The album covers – particularly Have Organ, Will Swing and Powerhouse! – are treasured icons of the space-age bachelor pad genre, seen by many, but actually heard by few. Surprisingly, the music inside isn’t particularly exotic. Cole was more of a lush, theater organ stylist (a job he’d actually held in the 1930s) than a bluesy howler, and though he had significant chops as a jazz pianist, they were spent mostly as an accompanist behind Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney and Nat King Cole (no relation). Here he sticks mostly to lyrical interpretations, though he does exercise the Hammond’s powerful sting, and adds some swinging bass lines and zesty percussion to the later arrangements.

Cole was prolific in his first few years recording with Capitol, releasing eight albums between 1958 and 1960, of which four are included here: 1958’s Have Swing, Will Travel, 1959’s Powerhouse! and Hot and Cole, and 1960’s Swing Fever. Given that the song lists stuck primarily to standards, the collection’s lack of chronological order (and the gaps in album sequence) will be noticed only by those who’ve lined up the original LPs by matrix number. The arrangements get quite a bit livelier by the last of the four albums, and cartoon fans will enjoy Cole’s take on Raymond Scott’s classic “Powerhouse.” Jasmine’s remastered all four albums in stereo for this bargain-priced set. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]

The Grateful Dead: Dick’s Picks 35

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Excellent shows from August 1971, long-lost at sea

The Grateful Dead were far ahead of their time in many respects, but none perhaps more so than the breadth, depth and quality of the tapes they archived (and as will be described below, occasionally lost) from their legendary live shows. The Dick’s Picks series was named for and originally curated by the band’s tape archivist, Dick Latvala. Following Latvala’s passing in 1999, the series was continued by the band’s current archivist David Lemieux. In contrast to the multi-track remixes released under the From the Vault banner, Dick’s Picks were mastered from stereo tapes, at times emphasizing performance over audio quality (which, to be fair, was almost always very good as well). This penultimate volume in the series features performances from three August stops on the Dead’s 1971 summer tour, Hollywood, San Diego and Chicago, spread across four CDs.

Originally released in 2005 (and reissued now for standard retail by Real Gone), the tapes behind Volume 35 have a story that’s as interesting as the music they contain. Shortly before Keith Godchaux auditioned for (and subsequently joined) the band, Jerry Garcia handed him a box of tapes from the 1971 tour – ostensibly to help Godchaux bone-up on the band’s repertoire. Whether or not he actually listened to them is disputed, but what’s known is that he parked them on his parents’ houseboat, where they sat until 2005, when his brother rediscovered them. Amazingly, 35 years at sea (well, canal, since the boat was moored in Alameda) had surprisingly little affect on the tapes, which are still quite full, crisp and balanced. Included is the entire San Diego show, the salvageable portion of the Chicago stop and an hour of the Hollywood performance.

With Mickey Hart having quit the band earlier in the year, Pigpen’s health issues minimizing his keyboard contributions (though not his vocals) and Godchaux yet to join, the band toured as a five-piece that played more as a guitar-guitar-bass-and-drums quartet. This gave them a rawer, less psychedelic sound, and seems to have simplified the board mix to stereo. All of the instruments and most of the vocals can be easily heard, and Phil Lesh’s bass sounds particularly rich throughout. The San Diego set (which fills disc one and a majority of disc two) mixes some of the Dead’s best-known originals (“Sugaree,” “Casey Jones,” “Truckin’,” and “Sugar Magnolia”) with country, blues and rock covers (“El Paso,” “Mama Tried,” “Big Boss Man,” “Promised Land,” “Sing Me Back Home,” “Not Fade Away” and “Johnny B. Goode”) that show off the band’s taste and range.

Concise numbers, like Otis Redding’s “Hard to Handle,” are stretched into showcases for instrumental improvisation. At the same time, they don’t loiter in one groove long enough to become repetitive; the segues are as interesting as the song choices, and even casual fans will appreciate how easily the band knit together disparate influences, often charting the flow of their sets on-the-fly. The Chicago set ends disc two and fills disc three, repeating a few songs from San Diego and introducing new titles and a few rarities. Chief among the latter is Pigpen’s “Empty Pages,” which is reported to have only been played twice, with its debut for this performance. Also included is an early version of “Brown-Eyed Woman.” Selections from the Hollywood Palladium show finish off disc four, culminating in a twenty-five minute rendition of “Turn on Your Lovelight.”

Other tapes from 1971 have been released through standard retail over the years, including February dates in Port Chester (the first without Mickey Hart) on Three from the Vault, the multi-venue Grateful Dead, and a legendary April stand at the Fillmore East on Ladies and Gentlemen. The Fillmore East dates are perhaps the most highly regarded by fans, but the band was in such fine form throughout 1971 that just about any of these sets provide great listening to fans and a good introduction to newbies. Those who shied away from (or were repelled by) the scene that surrounded Dead concerts may be surprised at how satisfying the music is on its own merits. Though the tribal vibe of their live shows may not have survived the transformation to tape, the band’s musicality certainly did. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

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Elvis Presley: Elvis Country (Legacy Edition)

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Elvis caps his remarkable comeback

Recorded in 1970 and released in 1971, Elvis Country was the culmination of a remarkable career resurrection. Starting with his 1968 Comeback Special, Elvis went on to reel off the brilliant From Elvis in Memphis (and the second-helping, Back in Memphis), the smartly constructed Vegas show of On Stage, and the studio/live That’s the Way It Is. He capped the run with this 1971 return to his roots, branding these country, gospel, blues, rockabilly and western swing covers with authority. Elvis showed his genius was rooted in his passion for music, which encompassed everything from the early rockabilly of Sanford Clark’s “The Fool” (written, surprisingly, by Lee Hazlewood) to the then-contemporary hit “Snowbird,” as well as classics from Ernest Tubb, Lester Flatt & Bill Monroe, Willie Nelson and Hank Cochran.

Recorded in RCA’s famed Studio B with Presley regulars James Burton, Charlie McCoy and Chip Young; the newly assembled studio hands included several players from the Muscle Shoals powerhouse, and the sessions were produced by Felton Jarvis. The arrangements ranged from loose, down home country jams to Vegas-styled orchestrations, and hearing the variety back-to-back, one quickly realizes how easily Elvis transcended the musical boundaries between his ‘50s roots and his glitzy ‘70s stage shows. Much like the 1969 American Studio sessions in Memphis, Elvis’ enthusiasm and musicality directs the assembled players and provokes top-notch performances; he leads the crew through a rocking workout of Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and brings “Tomorrow Never Comes” to a volcanic climax.

The original album tracks are knit together with snippets of “I Was Born About Ten Thousand Years Ago,” a gimmick that some listeners find irritating, and which wreaks havoc on shuffle play; the complete take is included in the bonuses. An earlier CD reissue expanded the track count from twelve to eighteen, and this double-CD pushes the total to twenty-nine, including all six earlier bonuses. Disc two opens with the third-helping of the Nashville sessions, previously released as Love Letters from Elvis, and adds three more session bonuses: the singles “The Sound of Your Cry” and “Rags to Riches,” and the album track “Sylvia.” The broad range of material on Love Letters doesn’t always connect with Elvis’ legacy as tightly as that on Elvis Country, but Elvis is in fine voice on each track, and the assembled players are sharp.

Everything here’s been issued before, but pulling together session material previously spread across singles, albums, box sets and latter-day compilations has created a superb recounting of the last chapter of Elvis’ incredible comeback. Not included are the eight Nashville tracks released as part of That’s the Way It Is. A third-disc with banded versions of Elvis Country (minus the musical segues, that is) would have been a great addition, but even without it, this is an excellent expansion upon previous standalone reissues, and a terrific complement to the Legacy editions of From Elvis in Memphis and On Stage. The remastered discs (by Vic Anesini) are housed in a tri-fold digipack with a booklet that includes liner notes by Stuart Colman and terrific photos. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]

Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers: The Centennial Collection

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Mid-1930s transcriptions of Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers

To mark one-hundred years since the birth of Roy Rogers (November 5, 1911), Varese Sarabande’s put together a set of twenty-one early tracks by Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers. Rogers, still performing under his birth name, Leonard Slye, formed the group in the early 1930s with Bob Nolan and Tim Spencer, and they quickly added fiddler (and bass vocalist) Hugh Farr. Before moving on to a film career as Roy Rogers in 1938, he and his fellow Pioneers became the model Western harmony singing group. These recordings are taken from transcriptions made in 1934 and 1935 for Standard, and include the group’s iconic “Cool Water” (with Rogers, unusually, on lead vocal) and several fine examples of Rogers’ yodeling. The collection ends with an early Rogers solo, “It’s Home Sweet Home to Me,” recorded shortly after his film career began. Laurence Zwisohn’s liners provide a quick sketch of Rogers career and a few notes on the recordings, and they’re supplemented by Cheryl Rogers-Barnett’s fond remembrance of her father. The packaging proclaims these as “never-before-released recordings,” but without detailed information (there are no dates or master numbers provided), it’s hard to be sure some or all haven’t appeared among Bear Family’s extensive box sets. What is for certain is the warmth and continuing vitality of these 67-year-old recordings, crisply transferred and restored by William Cook, Phil York and Steve Massie. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Neil Diamond: The Very Best Of Neil Diamond – The Original Studio Recordings

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An oddly sequenced collection of Diamond’s diamonds

As anyone familiar with Neil Diamond’s career knows, he’s had more hits that could possibly fit onto a single CD. But drawing across his stints on Bang, Uni, Capitol (for which he recorded the soundtrack to The Jazz Singer) and Columbia, this twenty-three track set shows Diamond’s maturation from Brill Building songwriter to hit-making singer to worldwide superstar to reinvented elder statesman. Of course, given the set’s non-chronological programming, you’ll only hear the actual arc of his artistic development if you reprogram the tracks as 12, 4, 9, 10, 16, 21, 20, 18, 6, 11, 21, 7, 5, 13, 8, 17, 2, 14, 1, 3, 15, 22, 23, 19. If you play the set as-is, you’ll start near the end of Diamond’s hit-making career with 1978’s “Forever in Blue Jeans” and spin through a few other 1970s releases before jumping back to 1966’s “Cherry, Cherry.”

Given the focus on hits, it’s easy to excuse the great album tracks left behind, but the inclusion of lesser sides in place of the hits “Thank the Lord for the Night Time,” “Longfellow Serenade” and “Heartlight” is surprising. The mix of Top 10s, Adult Contemporary hits (“Beautiful Noise”), low-charting singles that were hits for other artists (“I’m a Believer” and “Red Red Wine”) and latter-day sides with Rick Rubin (“Pretty Amazing Grace” and “Hell Yeah”) covers the breadth and depth of his career, but the muddled timeline and interweaving of mono Bang-era tracks with modern stereo productions is without obvious purpose. Segueing from the 1980’s “Love on the Rocks” to hard-rocking guitars of “Cherry, Cherry” is awkward, as is the mood shift from 1972’s “Play Me” to 1967’s bubblegum-soul “I’m a Believer.”

Despite the set’s odd characteristics, Diamond shines as a talented songwriter who learned early on how to write a hook, and a dramatic vocalist with a memorable voice. He’s been well-served by arrangers and producers who fit his voice into a variety of contexts – guitar-charged rock, organ-backed soul, contemporary pop and huge productions that echo the operatic grandeur of Roy Orbison. Diamond’s song-by-song notes are peppered with interesting recollections and generous sharing of credit with his many exceptional co-workers. It may surprise casual fans to find that he co-wrote with Marilyn and Alan Bergman, was produced by Robbie Robertson, and recorded several of his biggest hits in Memphis at Chips Moman’s American Sound Studio.

Noting the missing chart entries, as well as the terrific list price, this is a good single-disc sketch of Diamond’s career as a hit maker, but it’s only a sketch, and only a sketch of his hits. It balances his years at Bang (seven tracks), Uni (seven), Columbia (six) and Capitol (three), and plays well for those wishing to relive the artist’s most familiar songs. The two Rick Rubin-produced cuts, “Pretty Amazing Grace” and “Hell Yeah,” show Diamond still vital and growing in his fifth decade of recording. Still, a career as rich as Diamond’s can’t really be condensed onto one disc; even the three-disc In My Lifetime left fans arguing about what was missing. A more complete picture of Diamond’s early years can be heard by picking up The Bang Years: 1966-1968 and Play Me: The Complete Uni Studio Recordings… Plus!, and his Columbia years are well represented on original album reissues and several anthologies. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

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Arthur Lyman: Mele Kalikimaka (Merry Christmas)

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Vibraphone master gives holiday classics an exotica twist

Together with Martin Denny, vibraphonist Arthur Lyman defined the Hawaii-based instrumental style known as “exotica.” After recording the seminal Exotica album with Denny’s combo, Lyman struck out on his own, recording numerous jazz-flavored exotica albums for the Hi-Fi and Life labels, including the classic Taboo in 1958. This holiday entry was originally released in 1964, and features Lyman’s exquisite mallet work on a dozen titles. In Lyman’s hands, these classic Christmas songs take on an island languor you’re unlikely to hear in others’ versions, but it’s not all drifting and dreaming, as Lyman’s combo turns up the tempo on a few stagey romps. If you’ve tired of the crooners and rockers, Lyman’s brand of Polynesian pop-jazz will provide you a sheltered cove for the holidays. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Buck Owens and Susan Raye: Merry Christmas from Buck Owens and Susan Raye

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Bakersfield country legend sings original holiday fare

Buck Owens was no stranger to holiday recordings, having released Christmas with Buck Owens and his Buckaroos in 1965 and Christmas Shopping in 1968. By the time of this album’s release in 1971, Owens was recording duets with Susan Raye, and riding the tail of their first three hits, this holiday album was released. Ten of the eleven tracks are originals, capped by Raye’s solo cover of Gene Autry’s “Here Comes Santa Claus.” The songs favor idealistic Norman Rockwell-styled holiday scenes, but there are a few mournful lyrics of missing fathers, absent lovers and tough economic times. Raye sings lower harmonies than Owens or Don Rich, making these duets satisfyingly distinct from earlier recordings of these titles with the Buckaroos. Fans should start their Buck Owens holiday collection with Christmas with Buck Owens, but when you’ve played it to death, this is a good addition to the carousel. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]